The House of Broken Angels

(Paperback)

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Description

"All we do, mija, is love. Love is the answer. Nothing stops it. Not borders. Not death."

In his final days, beloved and ailing patriarch Miguel Angel de La Cruz, affectionately called Big Angel, has summoned his entire clan for one last legendary birthday party. But as the party approaches, his mother, nearly one hundred, dies herself, leading to a farewell doubleheader in a single weekend. Among the guests is Big Angel's half brother, known as Little Angel, who must reckon with the truth that although he shares a father with his siblings, he has not, as a half gringo, shared a life.

Across two bittersweet days in their San Diego neighborhood, the revelers mingle among the palm trees and cacti, celebrating the lives of Big Angel and his mother, and recounting the many inspiring tales that have passed into family lore, the acts both ordinary and heroic that brought these citizens to a fraught and sublime country and allowed them to flourish in the land they have come to call home.

The story of the de La Cruzes is the quintessential American story. This indelible portrait of a complex family reminds us of what it means to be the first generation and to live two lives across one border. It takes us into a world we have not known, while reflecting back the hopes and dreams of our own families. Teeming with brilliance and humor, authentic at every turn, THE HOUSE OF BROKEN ANGELS is Luis Alberto Urrea at his best, and cements his reputation as a storyteller of the first rank.

Reviews

"A raucous, moving, and necessary book...Intimate and touching...The stuff of legend...There's deep heart and tenderness in this novel.The House of Broken Angels is, at its most political, a border story...Chillingly accurate, they're heartbreaking, and infuriating."--Alexis Burling, San Francisco Chronicle
"An immensely charming and moving tale...Urrea deftly inhabits many points of view, dreaming up an internal voice for each...It is a testament to his swift and lucid characterizations that one does not want to leave this party...A novel like The House of Broken Angels is a radical act. It is a big, epic storyabout how hard it is to love with all of your heart, and all of your family--regardless of which side of the border they live on."--John Freeman, Boston Globe
"Epic . . . Rambunctious . . . Highly entertaining . . . Sorrowful and funny . . . Cheerfully profane . . .The quips and jokes come fast through a poignant novel that is very much about time itself . . . A powerful rendering of a Mexican-American family that is also an American family."--Viet Thanh Nguyen, New York Times Book Review (cover review)
"Generous and big-hearted...The House of Broken Angels soars on wings of memory and imagination into the 'imperfect and glorious, messy and hilarious' tragedy and comedy of family history."--Diana Postlethwaite, Minneapolis Star-Tribune
"Luis Alberto Urrea has crafted a story that is teeming with family love, secrets, jealousies, alliances, and surprises that make it burst with life on every page. He uses a large cast of characters to portray the breadth of the de La Cruz clan and also make them universal. Change the names, locations, language, and in-jokes, and they could be Italian, Jewish, Irish, or any other group of immigrants that has struggled to combine elements of their original home with their new one . . . The House of Broken Angels can be a multigenerational, multinational dwelling anywhere. Get a copy for your house."--Dale Singer, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"The House of Broken Angels has everything we demand of a great novel--sweep, ambition, generosity, myth, intimacy, and, above all, humanity. Luis Alberto Urrea just gets better and better."--Richard Russo, Pulitzer Prize-winning and New York Times bestselling author of Everybody's Fool
"The House of Broken Angels is a love song to the Mexican-American family."--Time
"The House of Broken Angels will appeal to anybody...A tender, sprawling, funny, violent family saga."--David Steinberg, Albuquerque Journal
"The House of Broken Angels is a big, messy, warmhearted epic, over-flowing with color and character...With bird's eye agility, Urrea moves between borders and generations...His narrative is imbued with the timeless texture of every immigrant's hope's and dreams...Generous to the last breath."--Leah Greenblatt, Entertainment Weekly
"A beautiful and heartbreaking family story."--HelloGiggles
"A big-hearted family epic that radiates with the joy of telling stories...The vibe of the novel isn't an elegy for the end of a clan that's lost its sense of identity, but a tribute to a family that has acquired the freedom to make multiple identities for itself...For a novel about death, there's a lot of life in it."--Mark Athitakis, Barnes & Noble Book Review
"A family saga that asks what it means to be American . . . The novel is knowing and intimate, funny and tragic at once. The de la Cruzes are a big clan, messy and complex. The members have competing agendas and secrets, but at the same time, all share a commitment to family. 'All we do, mija, ' Big Angel tells his daughter, 'is love. Love is the answer. Nothing stops it. Not borders. Not death.' It's impossible to read that line (or, for that matter, this novel) without reflecting on the current American moment, in which Mexican American families such as the de la Cruzes are often vilified. But if Urrea's novel is anything, it is an American tale. It is a celebration, although Urrea is no sentimentalist; he knows the territory in which his narrative unfolds. There is tragedy here and danger; these are real people, living in the real world. Still, even when that world intrudes, it only heightens the strength, the resilience, of the family . . . Even in death, Urrea shows, we never lose our connection to one another, which is the point of this deft and moving book."--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"A fascinating look at culture, family, and the roots that ground us to one another; Luis Alberto Urrea's The House of Broken Angels may be set around a 100-year-old's birthday party, but it reaches into every area of modern American life."--PopSugar
"A novel about humanity and all its marvelous mess...The House of Broken Angels succeeds in its depiction of the pettiness and love that so peculiarly intertwine in families.In particular, the relationship between Big Angel and Little Angel is loving and fraught, heightened by the sense that they must get it all out in the open with too little time. Urrea has clearly written from the heart...His novel is an intimate tribute to the bonds we don't get to choose, but to which we owe everything."--Grace Parazzoli, Santa Fe New Mexican
"A warmly hilarious novel. . . . Rollicking chaos, masterful storytelling and deep affection for its countless characters."--Colette Bancroft, Tampa Bay Times
"A whirling fiesta of a book...Filled with intelligence and wickedly funny cultural commentary, the story builds to an electrifying finale."--Marion Winik, People
"A sprawling yet intimate tale...rich in detail and images...It's the sort of book you might read, as I did, in one long, breathless push."--Moira Macdonald, Seattle Times
"Bestselling novelist Urrea celebrates family as he digs deep into the small moments and big questions of life. 'Love is the answer, ' he writes. 'Nothing stops it. Not borders. Not death.'"--Jane Ciabattari, BBC
"Boisterous . . . Fun . . . Although underscored by tragedy and strife, this novel is a story of hope and love-for all broken angels."--Yvette Benavides, San Antonio Express-News
"Clamoring and joyful...A story of crossed borders: the U.S.-Mexico border, of course, across which the family immigrated years ago, but also the borders between versions of history and between life and death...Urrea's affection for his characters is contagious, and the reader feels as though she's been welcomed to the party...Big Angel proves himself courageous in the face of death. But above all, he is courageous in his love, and the novel is beautifully unapologetic in this affirmation...A brimming, expansive novel."--Kirstin Valdez Quade, Newsday
"Dizzying...Urrea writes in exhilarating but controlled slashes, wielding a machete that cuts like a scalpel. Every page comes alive with scent, taste, and, perhaps most lovingly, touch...The House of Broken Angels is about a quintessentially American family, a family that came north looking for heaven but found that 'heaven was a blueprint.' But it's also about what it means to look back on a life and, with total honesty, take stock."--Omar El Akkad, Bookpage
"Each of the De la Cruzes is in some way a performer who shows extraordinary courage and vulnerability...Big Angel is grateful for his wife, for his family, and for the power of memory, and what an incredible story he tells...The House of Broken Angels is full of life and spirit and joy. At is heart this is a novel about being alive."--Luba Sawczyn, Burlington Times-News
"Engrossing and indispensable...This is a tender, passionate, loving and violent book, just like la familia...They have their squabbles and secrets, their grudges and crushes, their rivalries and resentments. But for every moment of sorrow, there are two moments of joy; for every fear, a glimmer of potential...This sincere family epic should be read all over our land of immigrants."--Cory Oldweiler, amNewYork
"Exuberant...Urrea has written a vital, vibrant book about the immigrant experience that is a messy celebration of life's common joys and sorrows."--Publishers Weekly
"Humane and often laugh-out-loud hilarious."--O, The Oprah Magazine
"Like the De la Cruz family, Urrea's writing is exuberant, unruly, and sometimes profane, filled with splashes of Spanglish and sensual imagery...The writing is political, too, as the author describes the often arbitrary cruelty of the border that has shaped the characters' lives...The author's humor does not diminish the daily horrors on America's border; it merely reveals the awfulness more clearly."--Sarah Tory, High Country News
"Luis Alberto Urrea is a master storyteller, and he delivers a masterwork with The House of Broken Angels. Stories spin on stories. There are lives intimately depicted and fully realized; losses redeemed by love; a dazzling display of narrative fireworks, each little scene a gem; and larger-than-life characters across two borders who cross all borders and become ours. We enter this house of broken angels, and through the magical power of Urrea's writing, we become healed and whole. And we laugh and tear up and shake our heads in wonder all the way to the ending of a book we don't want to end. Urrea delivers on every page. Dios santo!

Author Bio

A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for his landmark work of nonficiton The Devil's Highway, Luis Alberto Urrea is also the bestselling author of the novels The Hummingbird's Daughter, Into the Beautiful North, and Queen of America, as well as the story collections The Water Museum, a PEN/Faulkner Award finalist. He has won the Lannan Literary Award, an Edgar Award, and a 2017 American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature, among many other honors. Born in Tijuana to a Mexican father and American mother, he lives outside of Chicago and teaches at the University of Illinois-Chicago.